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Beckett Street cemetery, guinea graves

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Description:
Undated. View of Beckett Street cemetery showing rows of inscription graves or 'guinea graves'. These were a type of common grave for a number of unrelated people buried at the same time, but unlike pauper graves they had headstones commemorating the names of the dead. This type of burial originally cost the family one guinea (one pound and one shilling), hence the popular name. The graves on the right here date from 1912. In the background are the high-rise flats of Shakespeare Towers, Court and Grange.

User Comments:

Name:

Sharon Richardson

Comment:

Can anyone tell me if there is anyone by the name of Skivelton (skifelton or any other similar name) buried in this cemetary.

Date:

16-Jul-2010

Email:

Not displayed

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Name:

B Hallam

Comment:

Sharon, I believe there is a group known as 'Friends of Beckett Street Cemetery' who might be able to help you locate the grave you seek.

Date:

20-Jul-2010

Email:

Not displayed

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Name:

Les Deighton

Comment:

Hello Sharon, I have a CD of the buriels at Beckett Street Cemetery and there is a entry for a Mary Skivington a child grave number 19784,she died in 1876 if this helps. The Yorkshire Indexers Site could be of more help to you. Les Deighton.

Date:

16-Jan-2011

Email:

lwd42@hotmail.com

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Name:

Joanne Carter

Comment:

My great great grandmother Emma Carter is buried in a Guinea grave number 7235.

Date:

09-Feb-2011

Email:

joanne.carter@roadways.co.uk

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Name:

ALUN PUGH

Comment:

I am the chairman of the Cemetery Friends [as June 2013] Should you require information contact me on my email address

Date:

28-May-2013

Email:

a.apugh@ntlworld.com

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Name:

B Hallam

Comment:

Throughout the 1940's and up until the middle 1950's, as one of a gang of the local street urchins, this cemetery was our playground - climbing over its high stone wall of course ... using the lodge gates risked getting caught. But this wasn't my only connection with the cemetery as my Dad frequently worked there adding new memorials to the gravestones. Unlike most cemeteries, Beckett Street Cemetery - the first Municipal cemetery in the country, wasn't then too dissimilar to how it is today. Its tree-lined nature, and maze like paths snaking through a hundred-years of nature's prolific dominance, gave it an adventurous lure to us children. Being chased off was just part of the fun. That it is largely now being left to that ultimate dominance of nature, is to me, quite fitting. Created on land bought from the Beckett family in 1840, it is a Leeds' treasure little known of by most people. Along with what remains of the original St. James's Hospital buildings, they are the only remnants of the Beckett Street that was my childhood, teenage, and adult environment, until 1965 when the wreckers flattened it.

Date:

18-Jun-2013

Email:

barry.hallam2@ntlworld.com

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Name:

John Bean

Comment:

I visited the cemetery only recently with the vague intention of finding my paternal great grandfathers grave. On arrival I realised just how large and how numerous the headstones were here. Within a few yards I found the monumental gravestone of my maternal gt,gt grandfather and gained a great deal of info from it. A little later I decided to look amongst the guinea graves, most are in reasonable date order as it was worth eliminating those first,in my remaining quest. Some 20 mins later I had a photo of the gravestone of my initial search. I would recommend to those searching for ancestors to look at these guinea graves in whichever cemetery, as later in the week I found another relative in the old Leeds cemetery gravestone footpath at woodhouse , now the University park.

Date:

20-Jul-2013

Email:

bean-j@o2.co.uk

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